Allt y bela

P510 July 2020 N31 Medium

'In 2007 we moved from our home in the Lincolnshire fens to Allt y bela, a house with absolutely no straight lines. Originally a medieval cruck-frame farmhouse, it has evolved over time becoming rather grander when the extraordinary tower was added in the early 17th century. When we moved in, essential restoration work had been done to the house, but the garden was an utterly blank canvas. As I began to design, I knew I must be disciplined and distil the vast number of things I love, so I began with a list of my favourites: topiary, roses, fruit trees, wildflowers and kitchen gardens.

P510 July 2020 N272 Medium

I wanted the house to breathe and its garden to feel part of the landscape so we made the boundary fences as agricultural and transparent as possible, and strengthened the link to the surrounding land by echoing its character in the garden.
I took the drove way that cuts across the hill as the inspiration for new earthworks behind the house, and I used the language of a pastry lattice in plaits of box hedging on both sides of the house, repeating the criss-crossing in cobbled paths through the fruit and flowers in the area I call the cottage garden.

P510 July 2020 N57 Medium

The most important foundation block of the garden, however, is topiary. I have used it in place of walls, to create circulation within the garden and to make divisions in a transparent way. The scale and strength of the topiary helps to anchor the house and to reduce the apparent height of the tower. Close to the house are more formal yews and beech, which hold on to their golden leaves in winter. As the garden dissolves into the landscape I have clipped native hawthorn into the topiary, and also hedges, which are cut in an undulating manner to reflect the tree-line on the brow of the hills beyond.

At Allt y bela, the garden is full of roses. Not in the form of a formal rose garden, but in the meadows, and tumbling out of trees and hedges. In the borders I have trained them over 'rose domes' or pinned them down to cascade over the edges of walls. On a north wall at Allt y bela, I've used Rosa 'Astra Desmond' which does well in shade and it more than compensates for the lack of scent by the leaves, which are an incredible fresh green and by the small, shapely flowers that last for almost a month. At the front of the house, the long flowering Rosa Sir Paul Smith ('Beaupaul') tumbles over the wall, bringing glamour to an otherwise country palette.'

Words by Arne Maynard

 

P510 N7506 Medium
P510 N7158 Medium
P510 N6840 MediumP510 N6833 Medium
P510 N6830 Medium (1) 2
P510 N7251 MediumP510 N7410 Medium
P510 July 2020 N372 Print (2)
P510 July 2020 N383 Medium
P510 July 2020 N338 Medium (1)P510 July 2020 N337 Medium Cropped
P510 July 2020 N5 Medium
P510 July 2020 N432 MediumP510 N8370 Medium
P510 July 2020 N362 Medium
P510 N6289 MediumP510 N6212 Medium
P510 N8047 Medium
P510 N8297 PrintP510 July 2020 N341 Medium (1)
P510 N6399 Medium
P510 N6634 Medium (1)P510 N6489 Medium (1)
P510 N6575 Medium
P510 N6496 Medium
P510 N6498 MediumP510 N6541 Medium
P510 N6543 Medium